Thin client network setup

[t43m4n]

I'm about to purchase 4 thin clients so that we could test it. Currently we are running windows 2003 server with active directory in it. The setup will be 4 Thin Client -> Host PC (running XP SP3) -> Server. I just have several questions that perhaps you guys could answer:

1) How do I set this up? What do I need to do and what software is needed?
2) Will the users be allowed to login with their accounts in active directory (main server) when logging in to the host pc?

[kmount]

Which thin clients are you looking at?

[t43m4n]

It's the NComputing L230. Do you think this would suffice?

[kmount]

I've been using some NComputing L300's recently and had some good success with them, but this was to a 2008R2 server so slightly different application to yours.

As far as setting it up, you install the vSpace software on the host PC and (in the case of the L300 anyway) you just point it to this host PC and off it goes.

In the case of my testing it's completely fine using domain accounts but I've not tried it on XP (but can do if you want).

Cheers,

Kim

[t43m4n]

So basically what i do is, setup host PC so that it is in the office domain. Then install vSpace in the host PC. Log-in using Thinclients using their accounts in active directory. Should that work?

[kmount]

In my testing with the L300 + 2008R2 Host PC yes it works fine.

[t43m4n]

Hopefully this will work with our setup since our host PC is not our server. We have a separate server where we connect the host PC to.

[kmount]

That's fine (again speaking in L300 terms) because the 2008R2 box was a remote desktop server which was joined to a domain and I was using domain accounts.

[t43m4n]

So basically what you did was join the Remote Desktop Server to the domain then install vSpace. After that, the thin clients can log on using their domain accounts? Did you setup anything special?

[kmount]

That's exactly what I did.

[plexer]

You install the vspace software on whatever is the host machine and config the l230's to connect to it.

If the host is a domain connected pc the l230's will login to the domain also.

You still need correct licences.

Ben

[t43m4n]

Thank you both for the clarification. Will update you guys when I get this up and running.

[Axel]

Out of interest, why do you want to connect the thin cients to a PC, and then to the server.

Why not just connect the thin clients direct to the server...?

[plexer]

If you're only server is important I.e dc I wouldn't install vspace on it.

Ben

[t43m4n]

Out of interest, why do you want to connect the thin cients to a PC, and then to the server.

Why not just connect the thin clients direct to the server...?

Our server is acting as our DB server as well. We wouldn't want too much load on in because of the thin clients attached that's why we setup a separate host PC for the thin clients.